Gerrit Cole pitched like a top playoff player on Thursday night, allowing only one run over seven innings and leading the New York Yankees to a 3-1 win that sends them back to the American League Championship Series.
The six-time All-Star gave up six hits and struck out four batters before passing the game to the Yankees’ bullpen, which has been very strong during the tense AL Division Series. Clay Holmes threw a perfect eighth inning, and Luke Weaver easily handled the ninth, bringing the Yankees relievers’ scoreless streak to 15 and 2/3 innings this postseason.
New York will face either Cleveland or Detroit in the ALCS starting Monday night at Yankee Stadium. “Proud of these guys,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We get to go play for it now and we’re excited about that.”
Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, and Giancarlo Stanton, who shined in Game 3, all contributed runs for the Yankees, who secured their fourth ALCS spot in eight years while playing on the road. They won 50 games away from home during the regular season, their highest total in 21 years.
Michael Wacha struggled for Kansas City, not making it through five innings. He gave up two runs, six hits, and a walk. The offense, which has been struggling, managed only five runs total over the last three games of the series.
“In 2023, our season ended here, you know? We didn’t get in the postseason,” said Aaron Judge, who made the final out for New York. “I remember a lot of these guys were looking out on the field, and we all kind of came together and said, ‘It’s not going to happen again.’”
Kansas City has not won a home game since September 8, losing nine straight games, including the playoffs.
Still, it was an impressive turnaround for a team that went from losing 106 games last year to making its first postseason appearance since winning the World Series in 2015. With young stars like Bobby Witt Jr. signed to long-term contracts, there is hope in Kansas City that this marks the start of a new era.
“Feel really badly for those guys in the room,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said, “because as you know, this is seven, eight months of the year that they just pour it all into it, and give every ounce of effort and energy they have.”
New York set the tone right from the beginning, attacking Wacha like they did in the first game of the series. Torres hit a double on the first pitch of the game from the veteran right-hander, and Soto followed with an RBI single on just the third pitch.
Anthony Volpe kept the pressure on with a single in the fifth inning. After Alex Verdugo grounded into a forceout and Jon Berti singled to put runners on the corners, Torres hit a two-out single to make it 2-0, ending Wacha’s night.
Meanwhile, Cole seemed to get better as he moved through the innings.
The reigning Cy Young Award winner retired his first six batters, handled a leadoff single in the third, and retired eight more before allowing Tommy Pham’s single in the fifth. Cole quickly struck out Kyle Isbel on three pitches to end that inning.
“It was a great battle,” Cole said. “Just a great battle.”
Stanton, who hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth inning of Game 3, increased the lead to 3-0 with his single in the sixth. Tensions, which had been building all night and throughout the series after Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. called the Royals’ Game 2 win “lucky,” finally erupted in the bottom half.
Volpe made a hard tag on Maikel Garcia at second base to complete a double play, and Garcia took offense to it. Players from both teams rushed out of the dugouts before things calmed down.
“I just felt like (Garcia) tried to go in and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser,” Chisholm said. “I didn’t like that. I told him that we don’t do that on this side, and I’m going to stick up for my guys.”
The near-fight almost sparked Kansas City into action. Witt, who had been 1 for 15 in the series, followed with a base hit, and Vinnie Pasquantino, who had been 0 for 14, hit an RBI double. But with the crowd of 39,012 at Kauffman Stadium suddenly energized, Cole got Salvador Perez to pop out weakly to second base to end the inning.
Cole’s night finished after he got Isbel to fly out to the warning track with a runner on base to end the seventh inning. It was a deep hit to right field that could have been a tying home run if it had been hit in the right spot at Yankee Stadium.
New York’s bullpen took care of the rest.
“We’re in a good place. That doesn’t mean we’re in a great place,” Stanton said. “We’re here to win. No one wants to be on the losing side of this. Imagine how Kansas City feels right now. Nobody wants to feel that way. We have an opportunity to keep it rolling, but that is understood reality, that we have to take care of business.”
